Abstract

Collaboration between university departments and across universities is becoming increasingly important in implementing high-cost projects requiring sophisticated technical knowledge, as well as knowledge of the research environment. The Australian Academic and Research Library Network (AARLIN), is a consortial approach to providing an information portal delivering seamless access to the electronic information resources of Australian university libraries from the desktops of staff and students.

This paper briefly outlines the background to AARLIN, the service model, the architecture model, and the features that AARLIN provides to university staff and students, including federated searching across a diverse range of information resources, deep linking and context sensitive services. The authors discuss aspects of the collaboration between library and IT, benefits and disadvantages of the consortial approach, challenge in the management of the AARLIN service from the consortial perspective, the administrative and legal framework and the business model. Possible future initiatives include linking with e-learning environments. The perspectives of an individual participating institution in the consortium, La Trobe University, is also be presented.